


Unhinged

by 221b_hound



Series: Unkissed [21]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Childhood Memories, Crime Scenes, Dancing, Day before the wedding, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, John Loves Sherlock, M/M, Pet Names, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings, Sherlock Loves John, Singing, humming at a crime scene, solving crime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-05 11:19:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1816717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the day before the wedding. Sherlock thinks that John's slightly demented. John's just happy. (So is Sherlock but, shh, don't tell.)</p><p>And the day is only just beginning...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Good morning Starshine

During cases, Sherlock slept very little – adrenalin and the lure of the puzzle keeping him active and alert, sometimes for days. Boredom had the same effect of keeping him awake for long, long hours, being too restless for sleep to claim him.

However, immediately post-case, he would crash and sleep like a log, hardly rousing even when John got up at his usual hour. John would have liked the ability to sleep in more soundly, but too many years of medicine and soldiering had made him a habitual early riser.

The day before the wedding was no exception. John slid out of bed while Sherlock was in his post-case torpor, smiled at his sleeping love and bent to kiss the mess of curly hair that half obscured Sherlock’s face. Then, with a sappy smile, he traced his fingers over Sherlock’s cheekbones.

“ _Good morning, starshine_ ,” he sang softly, recalling a song that he thought was old even when he was young, “ _The earth says helloooo.”_ He dropped another kiss on Sherlock’s pale skin, and kept humming the melody to himself as he left the room on light feet.

*

Sherlock stood at the bathroom door some ten minutes later, his tousled sleepiness morphing into puzzlement as he listened to John in the shower. He could hear water sloshing, and the squeak of feet on ceramic. John was obviously dancing in there. It was not common for John to dance in the shower, and Sherlock longed to see the phenomenon, but there were the strange yet melodic sounds to consider.

_Gliddy glub gloopy, Nibby nabby noopy, La la la lo lo  
Sabba sibby sabba, Nooby abba nabba, Le le lo lo_

Cautiously, Sherlock opened the bathroom door onto steam and the smudged silhouette through the shower curtain of John, yes indeed, dancing in the tub under the cascade of hot water.

T _ooby ooby walla, Nooby abba naba,  
Early morning singing song_

And suddenly the shower curtain was thrown back and John, water streaming over his head and shoulders and body, was grinning at him like a giddy water sprite.

“ _Good morning, starshine_!” John declared musically and with unnecessary volume, “ _You lead us alooooooong! My love and me as we sing our early morning singing song.”_

“Your repertoire remains appalling,” observed Sherlock, though acerbity was diminished through a combination of sleepiness and the captivating concept of John as a water sprite. Sherlock had fond memories of him as a merman, after all.

“ _I don’t care, Starshine_ ” John warbled back at him, blew him a kiss and pulled the shower curtain closed once more. Behind the curtain, John began singing a litany of pet names to the awful melody. _“My scrumptious sweetpea, my sweet honeybuuuuuuuum, my blossom, wee honeybunny, consulting snuggletuuuuum....”_

Sherlock used the loo and washed his hands and refused to look at his own reflection, which kept traitorously grinning at the whole ludicrous situation.

*


	2. The Bells Are Going to Chime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mrs Hudson catches the boys dancing and brings word of Mummy Holmes

The first time Mrs Hudson walked in on John and Sherlock cuddling, it was eight days after their case in Manchester, and only one day after that terrible business with the fire.

She’d known for a long time that things were different between them, after Sherlock had returned from the dead and had at long last persuaded John to return to Baker Street. All of those secret looks from the past had become more open. They seemed more affectionate, though hardly in the clingy fashion new lovers could be. It wasn’t clear precisely what they were now, other than _more_ , but the change was noticeable.

But on this occasion, there was no mistaking the love. John had fallen asleep on the sofa, his head in Sherlock’s lap, and Sherlock was stroking John’s hair. Tenderly. His expression had been full of wonder and concern and a glow of joy as his long fingers trailed so gently over John’s cheek, through the short blond hair, around the curve of his ear.

Then Sherlock had realised she was there, and he’d looked up, startled, almost guiltily. He looked ready to pull away, but he couldn’t draw aside without waking the sleeping doctor.

Mrs Hudson just smiled at him and said, “Poor love, he looks exhausted. Here’s a casserole for later,” and left them to it.

The second time, four days after that, Sherlock had been curled up in John’s lap, his face buried in John’s neck. As the door had opened, John’s arms had compulsively tightened protectively around Sherlock’s shoulders. She suspected one or the other had been having nightmares. (She was aware that they both did, of course, though she never mentioned it.)

This time, Mrs Hudson’s only comment was, “Oh, don’t mind me, I shan’t be long, just bringing up the post.” Sherlock had grunted some unintelligible reply and burrowed into John’s arms, and John had abandoned awkwardness in favour of whispering something in his ear until she’d gone.

The third time, after they’d both come home in a cranky, stomping strop, she’d popped up to find John sitting in Sherlock’s lap, his forehead pressed to Sherlock’s. The tiff had obviously been dealt with and they’d apparently since been giggling over something instead. She could see one of the mostly full teacups contained both a mobile phone and a screwdriver. She decided not to ask, simply left the post and the biscuits, said, “Too-ra, then,” and off she went.

She still occasionally walked in on their moments of affection – never anything more lurid – and nobody seemed to mind, though Sherlock would sometimes ask her pointedly if she planned to be long. But her occasional interruptions were not any cause for alarm.

Mrs Hudson thought it was because she didn’t make a fuss. She was internally fussing like the dickens, of course, because it was delightful, seeing them at last so content together, but on the surface, she’d just bustle about with the mail, the baking, whatever else she’d come for, and bustle on out again.

She’d never caught them dancing before, though.

As she walked in this morning, John was jigging around the kitchen table while _Crazy Little Thing Called Love_ boomed out of the radio. John was laughing at Sherlock’s arched eyebrow, refusing to be cowed. (And no wonder, Mrs Hudson thought – even she could see the glimmer of humour in Sherlock’s eye).

And the next thing, John had grabbed Sherlock by the hand and waist and was swing-dancing with him, only a few steps, but lively and graceful nonetheless. Sherlock rolled his eyes as he submitted to the motion, until John’s lips pursed, perhaps considering his folly had gone too far. In the next moment, Sherlock gracefully curved his body alongside John’s and danced with him, properly, while the song finished. John’s grin returned and they danced together towards the open space of the living room.

On seeing her, John released Sherlock – who promptly went back for his cup of tea – and seized Mrs Hudson by the hand and waist to dance with her instead.

“My, you’re in a mood today, John,” she laughed.

“ _I’m getting married in the morning_ ,” John sang, and then, still beaming, let her go. “Sherlock thinks I’ve lost my mind.”

“I have never seen anyone so deranged by the prospect of wedlock,” said Sherlock, though he sounded smug, “Anyone would think he was actually looking forward to it.”

“Numpty,” said John affectionately over his shoulder. Sherlock’s disapproving expression at the label couldn’t hide the undercurrent of delight at John’s general attitude of joy.

“I just wanted to let you know I finished the icing of your cake last night,” said Mrs Hudson, patting down her dress, “In case you wanted to see it.”

“Why would we want to see it?” Sherlock asked.

“Because it’ll be perfect, of course,” said John graciously, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

Sherlock gave an aggrieved sigh. “That’s not what I mean.” But then he looked accusingly at Mrs Hudson. “Oh god, you’ve made little marzipan grooms for the top of it, haven’t you.” He winced. “You spent last night making the _hair_.” Then he squinted at her. “They’re going to be unspeakably _cute_.” The last word was spat out like it tasted nasty.

Mrs Hudson flicked at him with her apron. “Most people like my marzipan brides and grooms.”

“I hope you haven’t put John in white. It’s not his colour.”

“Of course not,” Mrs Hudson countered, “You’re both in dove grey, and unless you behave yourself, I’ll go downstairs and put devil horns and a tail on yours.”

Sherlock looked quite mollified by that threat and Mrs Hudson actually considered it for a moment. John was looking quite devilish himself at the notion. But she didn’t have the time, and she’d spent hours last night getting Sherlock’s sugared curls and the fine grooves of John’s short, straight cut just _so_.

“I have to get back, but I wanted to let you know your brother called to say he was picking up your mother this evening, Sherlock.”

Sherlock scowled and stalked into the kitchen.

John looked puzzled. “Why didn’t he call here?”

“He said no-one was answering,” said Mrs Hudson.

Sherlock was clanking about in the sink, and John was giving Sherlock a questioning look. "That's good, isn't it? That she decided to come?"

Sherlock unclenched his fist from the handle of the teacup he held and put it on the counter, hard. The ceramic clattered as it landed.

"You'll find there is a mathematics conference at Oxford University next week. One Professor Eloise Holmes was added as a guest lecturer this morning. _The applications of the Holmesian Algorithm to surveillance and governance in the 21st century._ Quite a coup for them, getting the reclusive professor from the Sorbonne’s Paris-Sud university. Of course, the renowned Professor Holmes would never travel on purely _personal_ grounds."

"But she's coming," said Mrs Hudson gently.

"No. She's _here,"_ clarified Sherlock, "Having missed every event of personal significance throughout my life, including of course my _funeral_ , I hardly think my _nuptials_ are topmost on her list of must-attend events."

Mrs Hudson saw John take a calming breath. She remembered a passing comment he’d made at the start of the preparations.

“I’d elope for tuppence, but I want him to have this.”

When Mrs Hudson had looked surprised at the comment, John had been momentarily belligerent.

“What? I want the world to see he’s worth more than that fuckturd Victor fucking Trevor. I’ll be _damned_ if we slink off to get married like we’re something to _hush up_.”

Then John had clammed right up, apologised for swearing and stomped off in a righteous huff. He thought she didn’t understand, but Mrs Hudson understood, all right. Sherlock Holmes deserved to be _seen_ to be loved. She knew perfectly well that Sherlock, as highly as he prized his own intellect, seemed constantly surprised that anyone could be _fond_ of him. Every time he turned around and she was still there, it was like he hadn’t expected her to be.

Perhaps what Sherlock had just said about his mother explained things, a little.

“Conference or not,” said John to Sherlock now, “She’ll be there. If I have to tie her to the garden seating myself, she’ll _be_ there.”

Sherlock frowned, but then his lips quirked in a wry smile. “Perhaps we can tie her next to your sister.”

John grimaced. “Good idea. They possibly deserve each other. Unless you want to put Mycroft in the middle, so he can keep the peace.”

“Or start a war. It’s one of his hobbies.”

A new song came on the radio and John took Sherlock in his arms again. “If we tie the three of them down in a row so they have to socialise, it will be like a very civilised torture, which Mycroft ought to appreciate. Make the occasion truly memorable, too. We’ll take photos to enjoy the looks on their faces again later.”

“Ah, John, we see again why I love you. Such an eye for detail.” Sherlock submitted once more to John’s urge to dance, more willingly this time, as Buddy Holly’s voice filled the room.

Mrs Hudson, sensing her presence was not required, slipped away to answer the doorbell she’d just heard ringing.

*


	3. Love Like Yours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Greg brings a crime to pre-wedding breakfast.

Greg Lestrade walked up the stairs to 221b, listening. It was true, he’d never walked in on anything worse than that ridiculous breakfast wrestling match the morning of the Bigelow case, but he didn’t want to walk in on anything more personal, either. And Mrs Hudson had just sort-of-warned that the couple were ‘in a silly mood’.

As he approached the door, raising a hand to tap a warning on it, he heard Buddy Holly’s _Everyday_ playing on the radio, and then the two men inside, talking.

“Will I be subjected to a whole day of dancing and your terrible repertoire?”

“Yes. And you don’t fool me. You like my terrible repertoire.”

There was the sound of shuffling footsteps. The aforementioned dancing, Greg supposed. Or hoped.

“I am rather fond of your voice,” Sherlock conceded, warmth leaking through the attempt at disapproval, “But your song choices are inane.”

“You like my song choices, too,” John countered, unfazed, and he sang:

_Every day seems a little longer,_   
_Every way, love’s a little stronger,_   
_Come what may, do you ever long for_   
_True love from me?_

Greg could practically hear Sherlock’s eyeroll from the corridor, but then unexpectedly, a rich baritone joined John’s pleasant tenor.

_Every day, it’s a-getting closer,_   
_Going faster than a rollercoaster_   
_Love like yours will surely come my way_

But only John sang _a-hey, a hey hey,_ and then he laughed.

“Your delight at the prospect of marrying me is incomprehensible,” Sherlock said.

“Numpty,” John replied. The following silence was, Greg thought, definitely a kissing silence.

Right. Enough. He hadn’t meant to be eavesdropping as it was. He rapped loudly on the door.

“Come in Lestrade,” Sherlock called out, as though he’d just been waiting for Greg to show himself. Greg pushed the door open and met Sherlock’s sardonic gaze.

“Don’t say it,” Greg protested.

“Fine,” said Sherlock.

“Say what?” John asked.

“I was not lurking,” Greg protested, despite the lack of open accusation, “I was…”

“Waiting for the right moment?” Sherlock suggested, still sardonic.

Greg sighed. “Yeah. Look. Sorry about this, I know you must have loads of last minute things to do today…”

“Not at all,” said Sherlock, “At least one of us is well organised.”

“And the other one’s a genius,” said John, “So… case, I take it?”

“It’s a bit weird,” conceded Greg, “I thought you might take a look at it, Sherlock. Two dead. It looks like a murder-suicide, but it’s a locked room and there’s no weapon. I have the photos…”

Sherlock sneered at the idea of mere photographs. “Is the scene still fresh?”

“I thought you wouldn’t have the time to…”

“Nonsense.” Sherlock began to go for his coat, remembered he wasn’t wearing shoes and began casting about the living room for sight of them.

“But…” Greg cast a look at John, expecting to see irritation at murder interfering with plans for the Big Day, “I don’t want to be too much of a bother.”

John, however, was bouncing on the balls of his own stocking feet. “Are you kidding? Crime! Honeybee,” John turned to Sherlock with sparkling eyes, “Greg’s brought us a murder!”

Sherlock answered John’s smile with one of his own. “Yes, I had noticed.”

“Sweetpea, _let’s go solve a crime_ ,” said John, with such gleeful energy that he rivalled Sherlock for inappropriateness.

“Let’s,” agreed Sherlock, “But not without our shoes.”

John disappeared into the bedroom to locate shoes.

Greg looked at Sherlock looking at John’s receding back.

“Well, he’s in a good mood,” Greg said.

“Yes,” said Sherlock slowly, “He is. Getting married appears to agree with him, or to have broken him, I’m not sure which.”

“The former,” Greg said, “You too.”

“Me?”

“Looked in a mirror today?”

Sherlock thought about the ridiculous grin he’d seen in the bathroom mirror this morning, and only then realised he was still wearing it. He tried to take it off, but it wouldn’t stay away.

“You’re giddy in love,” said Greg, “And you’re marrying the man of your dreams tomorrow.”

Sherlock tried to scowl at him, but the grin on Greg’s face indicated he had failed utterly to do so.

“We’re both quite mad,” Sherlock had to concede.

“And to think I thought you might need rescuing from pre-wedding jitters.”

Sherlock managed to find a non-giddy expression for Greg this time – one of mild scorn. “I don’t have pre-wedding jitters. I have no second thoughts. I used to think John would get them, but if anything, he’s…. giddier than I am.”

“Good. And oh, look, here he comes, like a little cobbler’s elf with his hands full of shoes.”

“You can fuck off and all,” said John cheerfully as he handed Sherlock his shoes.

*


	4. A Song of Love that Clings to Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sally watches Sherlock prancing about a crime scene, and tries to gently point out to John that he is perhaps humming a love song, and that might not be entirely appropriate. But she doesn't really mind.

John stood by the door of the room in which the murder had occurred, arms crossed, trying to look solemn and attentive.

Sergeant Donovan was standing to his left, and they were both watching Sherlock and Anderson go over the scene. The bodies had already been removed, to Sherlock’s keenly expressed displeasure, but the rest remained untouched, or so Lestrade insisted.

Instead of bitching about the consulting detective’s presence, Anderson was watching Sherlock closely.

Sherlock was inspecting blood stains, spatter patterns, walls, doors, furniture. He spent time at an empty fireplace filled with kindling and ready to burn even though it was summer; more time at the tiny window jammed a mere three inches ajar; a few minutes peering at and sniffing a faint stain inside the open, blood-spattered desk drawer. He was running through observations and conclusions at an incredible rate, moving around the room like a well-dressed gazelle, when he wasn’t moving like a crime-solving Fred Astaire.

Sherlock whirled around, waltzing with the clues, and John avidly watched every movement.

Sally watched John watching Sherlock.

“Ah…” she began, but John kept on watching Sherlock.

“John,” she tried again.

“Hmm?” He looked at her, sideways, still keeping one eye on the detective, who was getting more expansive.

“You’re humming.”

“Sorry?”

“You’re humming. Nat King Cole, I think.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“ _Unforgettable, that’s what you are_ …” she sang softly, so that only he could hear.

She had his complete attention now. “Oh.”

“It’s okay. I don’t think anyone else heard. I just thought… it’s not like you, at a crime scene to...sing. So…”

“Ah… sorry…”

“No, it’s fine,” she said, “You’ve always been very professional, generally. Not like him, prancing about,” she nodded at Sherlock, who was only just short of actual prancing. She caught the start of John’s scowl. “That’s fine, too, I mean, I know it’s just what he’s like. I get that now. But I thought… you might want to… or not… or…”

Sally sighed. “Forget it. It’s not important. Hum if you like. Sing if you want. Nice to see you happy. Both of you. Really.” And she straightened up and gave him the most sincere look she could. “I really mean it, John. I’m happy for you both.”

John peered at her, apparently examining her for any hint of sarcasm. Then he relaxed. “Ta. And. Yeah, probably shouldn’t sing at a crime scene. I know. It’s just…” he turned his head to see Sherlock on his hands and knees, bum in the air, scraping something from the skirting board and then leaping up in triumph with paint flakes in an evidence bag. “Look who I’m marrying tomorrow. I mean. _Look at him_.”

Sally, however, continued to look at John, with an indulgent smile. “You ask me, _he’s_ the lucky one.”

John’s look of surprise was very entertaining, she thought, but she didn’t have long to savour it. Sherlock, having shoved the wood flakes at Anderson for testing, swept over to the two of them, seized John by the elbow and tugged him towards the door.

“Sally, I direct you towards the gun oil on the skirting board, the abrasion on the window sill and the red marks inside the top drawer of the desk,” he threw over his shoulder, then, “John, the morgue, I need to see the victims.”

Sherlock’s hand moved to the small of John’s back as he ushered them out of the building, and his fingers flexed slightly there. Sally smiled. Those two were never overly affectionate at crime scenes, but it seemed that neither of them could suppress the urge today. And who could begrudge them one day of being unable to hold it back? They were getting married in the morning, and she’d never seen two people so utterly delighted at the prospect of becoming hitched.


	5. Your Heart Goes Pitter Patter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the morgue, John is still humming. Sherlock seems to be humming along to the duet. Molly thinks it's sweet, though she's not certain she has understood the explanation of the murder...

Molly thought she was hearing things at first.

Sherlock was examining the two bodies that had been brought in to her morgue in the early hours. She knew he could be cheerful when he worked – he so loved unravelling a mystery – but she’d never known that enthusiasm to manifest itself _musically._

She supposed that the humming thing was probably down to John, who was bending over the bodies next to Sherlock, examining wounds. He appeared to be humming too, and sometimes his feet would shift like he was about to break into a little dance. She thought she recognised the tune, an old duet that her parents used to like. How did it go?

_I hear singing and there's no one there_   
_I smell blossoms and the trees are bare_   
_All day long I seem to walk on air_   
_I wonder why, I wonder why_

That’s right, and it ended up with:

_There is nothing you can take_   
_To relieve that pleasant ache_   
_You're not sick, you're just in love_

Even though it was a morgue, and they were looking at two dead people, and really, it was not a dancing or singing occasion, Molly thought Sherlock and John were adorable. She had never known Sherlock so happy, the whole time she’d known him and John…

Well, after that awful year when John thought Sherlock was dead, and Molly felt sick with guilt and heavy with the responsibility of Sherlock’s secret, she had feared John would never be happy again.

The six months after Sherlock’s return were hardly better, with both of them miserable. John so angry, and Sherlock so defeated, living, it seemed to her, off the crumbs of John’s attention. If John had been that kind of man, Molly had thought, it could have devolved into a horribly abusive relationship, with Sherlock taking whatever punishment John wanted to mete out, just so long as John noticed him at all.

But John was not that kind of man, and Sherlock had become a new kind of man himself, in so many ways, and after all that pain and misery and grief, here they were. Humming and trying not to dance in her morgue and, she suspected, not even realising it.

“Dead before the incision, I think,” John was saying, very solemnly despite the swivel in his feet, “Molly could tell you for sure.”

“What do you make of this?” Sherlock was poking in the gaping throat wound with a probe, and John leaned closer. Sherlock, Molly could see, was gazing at the back of John’s head with incredible fondness.

“It looks like blood, but it’s…”

“Paint.”

“Incredible.”

“Not if you consider the weapon…”

“I mean you. You’re incredible.”

“It’s obvious.”

“It is to you,” John said, “It’s always obvious to you. And do you know why?”

“Unlike most of the Met, I am not brain dead?”

“That’s right. My Consulting Genius. Modest to a fault as well.”

And the two of the _beamed_ at each other.

Shortly thereafter, Sherlock was explaining the scenario to Molly as he texted the solution to her lovely Greg, and it was all a bit fast for her to keep up, but it was clear that it was a double murder.

The first victim had stabbed through the mouth and into the back of the throat with a stained paint brush, the mouth cleaned and swabbed post-mortem and the throat slit to cover up the evidence. The body had been brought to the husband’s office, where other preparations were made. The husband, given an anonymous message to meet his wife and partner in art fraud there, had been shocked to find her corpse on his carpet. The husband had locked the room – intending to dispose of the fraudulent paintings the artist had created for the couple, before they’d double crossed him over the payments. Only the miniatures, kept in the locked desk, were gone (retrieved by the artist) and instead the artist’s gun had been rigged with a clever pulley system to go off in the husband’s face as he opened the drawer. The killer – a painter and sculptor, motivated by revenge, it seemed – had set up a device to make the gun fire up into the husband’s face, then spring loose, where the artist could pull it out of the room via the tiny window, outside which he stood in the alley. The police were certain to find traces of his presence there, and the paint in the drawer would certainly match something from the studio.

Well, that’s what she thought Sherlock said had happened. Sherlock was hard to keep up with sometimes.

Though not for John. As Sherlock pocketed his phone, John rocked on his heels, his hands in his pockets. “We still have half a day, babe. What do you want to do with it?”

“Lestrade will want us to complete paperwork,” Sherlock noted sourly, as though he ever had the slightest intention of complying with that wish.

“You never do paperwork,” John said, “ _I_ do paperwork and then I forge your signature.”

“I refuse to spend the day waiting for you to complete paperwork,” Sherlock asserted. He never usually waited, either. His stated intention to not wait this time certainly indicated there were activities he’d rather pursue.

“Let’s skive off quick, then,” said John, “Greg won’t complain this once. Molly’ll put in a good word for us, won’t you Molly?”

“What? Oh, yes, of course. Not that I… it’s nothing to do with… I’ll do the autopsy report now – those two were next on my schedule anyway, so thank you for the pointer, Sherlock, about the, the… paint was it? You two go off and… have a nice day. Go dancing or… something.”

Sherlock looked at John’s feet, then up at John’s face. John did not even pretend to be abashed.

“How do you feel about a visit to the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons?” John suggested, “They’ve got an exhibit on war, art and surgery I’ve been wanting to see. You could…”

“I have been asked not to return to the Hunterian,” said Sherlock primly.

John looked at him. Looked at him harder. Then he started to laugh. “What did you pinch?”

“The skull,” said Sherlock, “And a preserved foot. I gave the foot back, though. My roommate at the time raised hell.”

“You used to have entirely the wrong kind of roommate,” said John with a level of warmth that was not socially acceptable given the topic.

“I know.” Sherlock’s eyes positively twinkled back, “But let’s try the museum anyway. They have some dental samples I want to review, and I expect the recent staff don’t know about the embargo, which was 15 years ago.”

“As long as you don’t go pinching anything else.”

Sherlock attempted to look scandalised at the notion, which fooled nobody.

“Right. Bye Molly.” John kissed her cheek, which Molly thought was nice, because he didn’t do that often, and really, for a long time he’d been furious with her. Understandably, with the secret she’d kept from him, even though she’d done it as a solemn promise to Sherlock, to keep John and Greg and Mrs Hudson safe, and Sherlock too, of course. And still John had forgiven her months before he’d forgiven Sherlock, but that was all past and forgotten, and tomorrow they were getting married and Molly would be throwing rice over them and crying like she always did at weddings, and she hoped Greg would find that as endearing as he seemed to find everything else, and…

Sherlock kissed her other cheek.

And then they were gone.

*


	6. Burning Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mummy Holmes wants to know what John's defects are; what he percieves Sherlock's to be; and then she confesses some of her own. She was a terrible mother, but that's not all she is. And John reminds her so much of her late husband.

Eloise Holmes, Professor of Mathematics at the Paris Sud branch of the Sorbonne, stood at the window in her son’s living room and gazed at the sheet of music on the music stand. The composition was completed, and she could hear it in her mind with precision. Not with the emotion, though that was so evident in the firmness of the downward strokes, the flair of the upward ones, the swirl of the ovals across the page.

She could see the energy and care in the writing of the score, though, and in musical terms she could imagine the complicated sweeps and rises, the sometimes military swagger in it, the sudden quiet drops, as though sorrow intruded (as she recalled from music theory). If she closed her eyes, she could imagine seeing Sherlock play it, as well as hear it, at least as far as the notes went.

Sherlock thought she didn’t know how he played, but of course she did. Mycroft had recorded every recital, and she had watched them all many times over, wondering that such a creature of music and passion was a child of hers.

“I imagine that’s a piece for John for the wedding,” came her eldest son’s soft drawl from across the room. Mycroft always did like to imagine he knew what was going on in Sherlock’s head, Eloise thought. Of course, he was far more likely to know than she was herself. Sherlock’s head had always been a mystery to her. Mycroft she understood better, which was not to say she understood him well.

“Do you like John?” she asked Mycroft.

“It is irrelevant whether I like him or not.”

“That isn’t what I asked, Mycroft.”

There was a pause, as though Mycroft was considering the issue. “He is an excellent match for Sherlock. I doubted him initially. I felt sure he would fail to make allowances…” The long pause then was not expected, and finally Mycroft continued. “Dr Watson does not believe allowances need to be made. He appears content to accept Sherlock as he is. And what is that, but… love?”

“What indeed?”

It was not footsteps on the stairs that alerted them to the return home of the detective and his blogger. It was the laughter.

“John,” rose up Sherlock’s unmistakable voice in mild protest, but the ring of pleasure beneath it was as clear as day, even to Eloise, “I am beginning to question the wisdom of plighting my troth to someone so unbalanced.”

“You've only yourself to blame, since you’re the one making my brain fritz.” 

“Love does not cause _brain-fritzing_.”

And then came the singing.

_Lord Almighty, I feel my temperature rising_   
_Higher higher, It's burning through to my soul_

“You are too short to be Elvis Presley, John.”

_Pooky-boo, you gonna set me on fire_   
_My brain is flaming, I don't know which way to go_

_“Pooky Boo?”_ Again, a stern note, under which thrummed joy.

“Come on, honeypumpkin, this is the best bit, let me see you dance!”

There was rhythmic thumping on the stairs as first one set of feet, and after a moment another, appeared to be dancing up and down the steps, which was an inefficient way to climb them. Only John’s voice rose up, though.

_Your kisses lift me higher, like the sweet song of a choir_   
_You light my morning sky, with burning love_

Eloise turned to face the door as it opened, though Mycroft did not bother to rise from the chair.

The short blond man – John Watson, obviously – pulled up at the sight of her, and Sherlock only just managed to not crash into the back of him.

Eloise watched the uninhibited joy disappear from her son’s face to be replaced in an instant with a stiff, blank mask.

“Mummy.” The word sounded like an accusation of sorts.

“Sherlock.” She kept her tone light, pleasant, but it didn’t soften his mask.

Sherlock turned his head slightly to glare at Mycroft. John Watson recovered from his surprise and stepped forward, holding out his hand to shake. “Good afternoon, Mrs Holmes. I’m John Watson. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Eloise couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but she appreciated his civility. She noted that any embarrassment he may have felt on being caught in a moment of silliness was not obvious. Perhaps he wasn’t embarrassed about it.

She shook his hand briefly and let go at once. She didn’t much like having strangers holding her hand, especially not the right. Her William had held it of course. All the time, until his sudden and pointless death. Not for the first time, she wondered if the aversion to touch had come because she didn’t want to become accustomed to a touch that was not his. She could still recall the shape of William’s hand in hers, his individual fingers, the way he squeezed her palm to let her know everything was all right. She’d always been careful to hold her son’s hands in her left, so as to preserve the memory of it.

“You’re not as young as I thought you would be,” she observed.

John Watson opened his mouth to speak, closed it and did something complicated with his face – a rapid flit of emotions that she couldn’t keep up with, but she thought she detected puzzlement, curiosity, irritation and amusement within the cascade.

“Sherlock’s doing his best to keep me young, when he’s not doing his best to give me heart failure,” he said, with a smile to show he was joking.

What an intriguing man. The one time Eloise had met that boy from university, Victor, he had been dreadfully ingratiating from the start. She hadn’t liked him much; nor had Mycroft.

Eloise regarded this John Watson with a piercing look, of the kind she knew made her students and many of her fellow professors uncomfortable. John simply straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin, submitting to the scrutiny with a certain calm she found fascinating.

“So,” she said at last, thinking of Victor Trevor, and a number of her youngest’s other attachments during his more tender years, “What are your defects, then?

“What?” Puzzled. Annoyed. Still cautious. Still _interesting._

“Mummy…” snapped Sherlock, angry at her, but that was not new.

“The others who attempted to attach themselves to my son,” said Eloise coolly, “Were liars, thieves, bastards or combinations thereof. What is your particular defect?”

Sherlock had come alongside John, apparently to draw him away, but John had merely cocked his head to one side, considering her, or perhaps his answer, because without moving away he said:

“I’m a damaged ex-army doctor with PTSD. Bit of an adrenalin junky. Grumpy bastard in the mornings. And…” He flicked a glance up to Sherlock. “A terrible repertoire, I’m told, though I’ve always thought my store of pop songs was superior.” He smiled at Sherlock, an expression that Eloise couldn’t quite fathom, except that it reminded her piercingly of William, before turning back to face her. “And what are yours?”

Eloise Holmes blinked. She smiled. “Too numerous to list, I’m afraid. What do you make of my son’s defects, Dr Watson?”

John Watson smiled at Eloise this time, and it was nothing like William’s smile. This smile was cold and dangerous. It made her wary. _Nothing_ made Eloise Holmes wary. She couldn’t decide if she liked that smile and how it made her feel, or not. She had seen Mycroft wince as she asked the question, and wondered if he had been subjected to a similar blade-like smile in the past.

“If you’re talking about the eldest,” said John, flicking a glance at Mycroft, “He can be a pompous and manipulative git, but when it comes to Sherlock, I think he means well, even if he’s absolute pants at it. If you mean Sherlock, well…” Again, that glance up at Sherlock (and Sherlock’s thunderous expression) in which all the sharpness of the smile softened into genuine affection. “I haven’t found any yet. People expect me to say his temper and his sulks and his habit of leaving body parts next to the butter, but between you and me, I find that mostly funny.”

Her boy Sherlock met John’s gaze and blinked at the sunny smile that greeted him. He grinned back, as though it were a Pavlovian response to that expression.

That smile, _that_ one – that’s what reminded her of William. None of Sherlock’s other… _friends_ had ever made her think of William before.

When John Watson turned his smile on her again, and she watched it grow brittle and dangerous once more, she laughed. “Oh, I like you, Dr Watson. Yes.” She nodded approvingly at Sherlock. “You’ve chosen well, Sherlock. He reminds me of your father.” 

Sherlock did not reply for a long time. He stared at her so long that she wondered if she had managed to say the wrong thing again. It’s what she usually did.

Like the day she went to her rooms at the university to find her supposedly dead son sitting at her computer, hacking into London’s CCTV with her algorithm, watching a short, unhappy man who she now realised was this same John Watson.

She had handled that situation badly.

Of course she had not believed him dead. _Suicide of a fake genius_. That could not _possibly_ be her boy. Her precious son. Not like that. Sherlock would not die like _that_. She refused to believe it, statistics and evidence be damned. She would, for once in her life, believe in a thing despite the lack of proofs or science to uphold that belief. Her son could not _possibly_ be dead in that manner, and so she would not attend any funeral that pretended such a terrible thing was real. She had refused all calls, all correspondence from Mycroft from the day she heard, because she would not countenance accepting any evidence to such a dreadful concept. Her William was dead. She would not let the son who was most like his lost father to be lost as well.

And then, there he was, in her rooms, five months after his reported death. Her Sherlock, whole, as she had known he would be; had believed harder than she had believed anything in her life.

But she had realised at once that the deception must be for the most extreme of reasons. She had realised that he was dead to the world for a reason, and that she must do nothing to jeopardise his safety. So she had nodded hello, and gone on to her classes as normal, so that nothing in the world would see a variation in her routine. Nothing in the world could possibly use the slightest taint from her to threaten her son’s safety.

When she had returned to her office, several hours later, he had gone. Before she could tell him how glad she was to be right about him not being dead. No doubt he had left believing her unmoved by his situation.

She had sat at her desk and cried.

She hadn’t cried since William’s funeral. It was unpleasant.

Sherlock was in many ways much more William’s son than hers, for all that Sherlock resembled her. Mycroft had more of his mother’s temperament, more measured. Of course, his father’s passionate heart beat within her eldest boy, too, but he managed it better.

Eloise missed William constantly, of course. He had been her guiding light, her interpreter of the world. Her sweet William had been able to reach inside her and turn on the light that had been dark before they met, and dimmed to greyness again after his pointless death. Ananeurism, at his age. Ridiculous. Eloise Holmes understood the statistics of it very well indeed, the mathematical probabilities, and the world of course did not make exceptions for the random chances of biology just because someone was loved so deeply. She had lost her William, and that was that, and she was left to raise two boys, six and thirteen, alone. Ill equipped for the task. She never missed her William more keenly than when she knew she was failing her sons and did not understand why.

Like now. She was pleased for Sherlock, but he was angry again, and she had once more failed to understand why.

“You asked after my own defects, Dr Watson,” she said, turning from her son’s ire to the doctor’s cold challenge, which was easier to face.

John blinked, as though surprised she should return to this topic, but it seemed only fair, since he had responded so readily.

“I have too many,” she said, tone even and cool as always, “But chief among them is that I am not a good mother. I’ve tried to be, of course. I kept my children fed, clothed, educated. But I admit, I never understood children, and when their father died, I had to commit myself very seriously to my work in order to be able to look after them. I was better when William was alive. He…” she faltered briefly, then ploughed on, “He was a wonderful father, and very good at making clear things I found difficult to process. I can’t always read expressions. I frequently misread or indeed fail to notice responses. I’m much more comfortable with mathematics.” She tried a small smile. “Had William lived, I have no doubt that my son’s lives would have been very different. But he didn’t. And he took my light with him when he left. And so I have been a very poor mother, I think.”

She swallowed and looked at the ground, not wanting to see those expressions she couldn’t quite interpret. In recent years she had read about autism spectrum disorder and suspected that she had a disorder of that nature. William had somehow managed to be a conduit, earlier in her life, between her ordered, logical nature and the kaleidoscopic world of emotion she had always struggled to inhabit.

“Mummy?”

That was Mycroft’s voice, uncertain. She had never heard him speak uncertainly. The two men in front of her seemed not to move.

And then Sherlock spoke.

“What am I supposed to do with that?” He sounded angry, still. And anguished.

“I don’t know,” Eloise admitted, “Nothing, I suppose. It is simply a fact to consider.” She took a breath and raised her eyes to look at him. “I have always loved you, and Mycroft, but I am poorly equipped to express it and I was, for most of your lives, somewhat focused on the practical aspects of raising you. Your father understood me in ways no-one else had, nor anyone since. Your fiancé reminds me of him, very much. I’m very happy for you.”

Eloise patted Sherlock’s arm.

“Don’t do anything with it, Sherlock. I am a terrible mother. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you. But it’s irrelevant. Tomorrow you will marry someone who knows how to love properly, and it will end differently for you. You will keep your light for the rest of your life. I will believe that as powerfully as I believed that you could not possibly be dead, because I do not want to accept that the world is thoughtlessly cruel, even though it is. Mathematics is beautiful. It has logic and balance, and the world is made of that as surely as it is made of random meetings with extraordinary people, and random death. If mathematics brought your father to me and then took him from me, then in balance, you will keep your doctor.”

Eloise stepped aside from the two men who stared at her. She saw that John held Sherlock’s hand, squeezing it tight, and she felt a tingle in her own palm, in the shape of William’s hand.

“Mycroft, take me to the hotel,” she said.

Mycroft, moving slowly, went to the door and opened it, and waited until Eloise passed through it. She heard him say “Well, gentlemen, we’ll see you in the gardens tomorrow at eleven.”

Then he accompanied her down the stairs to the street. The car pulled up a moment later.

Eloise turned to Mycroft. “You know that I love you, Mycroft. Although I was not the parent who should have raised you.”

Mycroft – her eldest, so much more like her than like William, who had borne so much of the burden of parenting when she was studying, working, grieving, trying to understand the needs of children and desperately missing the man for whom it had not all been such a puzzling, frightening mystery – he seemed as adrift as had Sherlock only a moment ago.

“Is that why you wouldn’t answer my calls after the news reports,” he asked her, “Because you were afraid I would tell you he was really dead.”

She felt foolish for the wilful choice to disregard logic, but she couldn’t deny it.

“I had intended to tell you he was not. I didn’t want you thinking he was dead, even though he left John to that fate. For the best of reasons, obviously. But you burned my letters and ignored my calls and deliberately left Paris when you knew I had come to see you. Because you could not bear to be told it was true.”

Eloise sighed. “Yes.”

Mycroft carefully placed his arms around his mother and hugged her. Gently, but for a long time.

“Nor could I,” he admitted.

When they got to her hotel, Mycroft held her right hand, and Eloise let him, just this once.

*


	7. Eternal Flame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Eloise Holmes's confessions of her defects. Rage and grief and fear. Sherlock thinks he is just like his mother after all, but John knows that he isn't. The door on past grief comes off its hinges at last, and everything can be seen in a new light. Then there is comfort, and tea, and terrible, wonderful, awful love songs.

John held Sherlock’s hand as the door closed behind Mycroft. Sherlock’s grip was white-knuckled and beginning to hurt, but John simply grit his teeth and squeezed crushingly back.

It was the silence before the explosion; Sherlock’s sharply indrawn breath the whistling of the bomb before landfall.

Sherlock tore his hand free of John’s and began pacing furiously as the tumult sprayed out, so much gelignite and shrapnel, an IED John never saw coming.

“How dare she? How _dare_ she? Forgive my neglect, I have a _defect_. Your father died and I ceased to have the capacity to _demonstrate_ care. I love you but cannot express it. What’s the use of that? What’s the use of love you only _feel_ but can’t _display_? What earthly use is that knowledge to me? What possible point does it serve? _I’ve always loved you._ ” Sherlock spat Eloise’s words back out as though spitting out poison. “A lifetime of neglect and now _I’ve always loved you._ I preferred the neglect. At least it was consistent.”

Sherlock halted long enough to glare at John. “Say it.”

“Say what, Sherlock?” John asked, very calmly, very seriously, because he didn’t know what Sherlock needed right now. His own tumult he pushed down, out of the way, where it wouldn’t interfere with finding out exactly what Sherlock needed, and making sure he _got_ it.

“Say that she’s my _mother_. That I should _forgive_ her because she struggled and she _suffered_. That I have _no right_ to be angry.”

“You have every right, Sherlock. What she said may explain her behaviour, but it doesn’t excuse it.”

Sherlock stood in the centre of their living room, his chest heaving as though he had run a marathon, and he looked at John as though John were the only sane creature in the entire world.

Then Sherlock folded down onto the carpet, sat with his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped tight around them and his face buried against his legs, and he _shook_.

And John took two steps and folded down with him, arms around Sherlock’s shoulders, pulling the furled body close to his chest, trying to envelope the whole of Sherlock in his own smaller frame, to shield him somehow from the blow that had already landed.

“I’ll tell her not to come tomorrow,” promised John, low and steady, “I’ll tell Mycroft to keep her away, if that’s what you want.”

Sherlock may have tried to speak, but only a strange, strangled cry emerged.

“You are the only thing that matters to me, Sherlock. She can go to hell. Only you matter. I will tell her to her face to go to hell if you don’t want her there. You don’t have to talk to her again if you don’t want to. You are all that matters, baby. Sweetheart. All right? Only you. Only you.”

Sherlock shifted slightly, to look up at John.

“You believe her to be sincere,” he observed, or perhaps accused, “Why?”

“I do. But that’s not the point.”

“But _why_?”

John saw the tension in Sherlock’s clenching jaw, the ice in his pale eyes, and chose to let such rage wash off him. He delicately traced the fingers of one hand around Sherlock’s cheek and brow, and he spoke softly. Lovingly.

“Because she has your eyes, and I saw that she meant every word. She loves you. She’s rubbish at doing anything about it, and she knows it, and she’s sorry for it. But it’s really beside the point, Sherlock.”

Sherlock grimaced at him. “It’s the other way around. I have _her_ eyes. _I_ look like _her_.”

John stroked Sherlock’s face again. “But I knew your eyes first, sweetpea. And I can read your eyes.”

“Not all the time,” said Sherlock.

“Most of the time.”

“Not _that_ time.” And Sherlock pulled away from John.

But John could read Sherlock’s eyes almost all of the time, and so he followed and wouldn’t let Sherlock withdraw completely. He hovered, not touching, because Sherlock obviously didn’t want him to touch right now.

“That was different,” said John firmly.

“How was it different? How am I different to her? To care but fail to show it. To be cruel without cruel intent. To make you watch me fall so that I could… I could….”

John couldn’t stop himself then, from reaching to cup Sherlock’s face in his hands, to override that wave of shame and self-loathing he saw rising like a black tide in his sweetheart’s eyes.

“No. Sherlock, no. That is not the same. It is _nothing like_ the same.”

“What right do I have to be angry when I am _just_ like her.”

“No, no, no, no. Sherlock. Sweetheart. Honeybee. No. What you did, you did to save lives. To protect the people you love, and who love you, from Moriarty’s insanity.”

“That doesn’t make what I did less cruel.”

John pressed his forehead to Sherlock’s, rubbed his thumbs across Sherlock’s cheeks, which were wet now, and so were his own.

“Listen to me,” said John, and he found that his own repressed response was perhaps exactly what Sherlock needed after all, “ _Listen_. What you did hurt. Of course it did. But you didn’t do it to protect _yourself_. Everything you’ve ever told me about your mother, and what she said just now – I think your mother was grieving for your father. But so were you and Mycroft. You _all_ lost him, but she’s the one who _hid._ She said she was a better mother when he was there, and that means she was _learning_ how to express her love. She wants to blame other things for her limitations, but she says she wasn't like that when your dad was alive. She didn’t have to be like that after, even though it hurt to lose him. She _chose_ to stop making the effort. She may not have meant to be cruel, but she made choices that she thought spared her from her own pain. She chose for _herself_ and didn’t think about her kids. What you chose that day, you chose for _our_ sake, not your own. You chose terrible things but you did it for us. For _me_.”

“There should have been another way.”

“ _What_ other way?”

“I don’t know.” Sherlock half groaned his despair. “I don’t know.”

“If you don’t know, then there _wasn’t_ another way. I believe that. I believe in you. I will always believe in you.”

“I don’t deserve your faith.”

“Of course you do. Numpty.” John kissed Sherlock’s brow, his cheeks, his mouth, then pressed their foreheads together. “You deserve every good thing. You deserve everything I can ever give you. You saved me, Sherlock, when we first met. You are amazing. You are incredible. Yes, it was a terrible thing you did. It was a terrible time and there were no other choices but that terrible thing or death. So yes, I watched you fall – but baby, sweetheart, my wonderful, incredible, infuriating, fabulous, imperfectly perfect honeybee, _you came back to me_ , and we found a way to… to _demonstrate_ our care. We found a way to not just feel it but to _show_ it.”

John hated seeing disbelief in Sherlock’s expression, but he loved, oh he _loved_ , the dawning hope.

“I want to take it back,” said Sherlock, voice breaking, “I always want to take it back, what I made you witness. My fall. My funeral. I want to take it all back. I don’t know how. But I want to, John. _I want to_.”

“You do, my precious thing. My beautiful boy. Every day you’re with me now, you take it back. You show me how you feel and you take it all back. Every single day.”

Sherlock burrowed into John’s arms, against his chest and legs, close, close, close to that sturdy, strong body, and pressed his face close, close, close to John’s throat to feel-and-hear the steady heartbeat. John crushed him in his arms, until he knew it must hurt, but Sherlock only tried to get closer still, and John kissed Sherlock’s hair and his face and held him tight, tight, so so so tight, until it paradoxically became easier to breathe.

They sat together, holding on, letting their breathing become slow and calm again. Synchronised. The breath of life resuming after the explosion.

After a time Sherlock, not lifting his head from where he was breathing the heat from John’s skin, said: “Is this how she feels? This… regret?”

“I think… maybe.”

“I want her to be there tomorrow. I want her, just once, to be there for something important to me.”

“Then she’ll be there. If I have to nail her to the pavilion.”

Sherlock laughed, a little wetly, but John felt the tension in those slender shoulders relax.

“If you can forgive me,” said Sherlock, “Perhaps I can forgive her. A little.”

“Of course I forgive you. I forgave you a long time ago.” John nuzzled into Sherlock’s curls, kissed the crown of that bowed head. “Let it go, baby. You took it all back, I promise you. It’s gone and forgotten. I’ve got you now, and tomorrow I am declaring, in front of everyone who matters, that I love you. _I love you_ , Sherlock.”

Sherlock sighed, an exhalation that sank him into limp and trusting exhaustion in John’s arms. He nosed up against John’s jaw, kissed the same spot, then nuzzled John’s cheek. “I love you too, John. I know how to say it now.”

John tilted his head so that their lips met, and despite the residual sticky dampness of all the tears, they kissed.

“This plan you had,” murmured Sherlock after a while, “Of sleeping in your old room tonight while I stayed downstairs. It’s rubbish.”

John smiled. “It’s meant to be symbolic, before the wedding.”

“It’s _all_ symbolic,” Sherlock complained.

“You’re quite right, bumblebear, it’s a rubbish idea. Consider it discarded.”

“Good.”

Sherlock rested his head on John’s shoulder, his hand on John’s chest, over his heart, fingers flexing slightly, as though capturing each beat of it in his fingers, to absorb into his bloodstream. John rubbed his cheek against Sherlock’s hair, played with the tips of the curls with one hand while the other rested on Sherlock’s thigh, a still and anchoring presence.

“I thought it was my fault,” said Sherlock after a time, voice calm, “I found him. In the yard. My father was my first body.”

John thought his heart would break. “Oh, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”

“I thought he was asleep. I got Mummy and she screamed, and then she screamed at me, asking what I’d done. I thought I _must_ have done something, she was so angry. I researched aneurisms a few years later, when I was at boarding school, to find out how I could possibly have caused it, but of course I couldn’t have.”

“Of course not. Oh Sherlock. Sweetheart. My poor sweetpea.”

“Ssh, John. I’m all right. I realised it wasn’t logical.”

“What the mind knows and what the heart believes aren’t always the same thing.”

Sherlock considered the wisdom of this. His fingers continued to flex over John’s heart. “No. But I think perhaps she blamed me anyway, logic notwithstanding. For being the one to tell her.”

John cradled Sherlock and kissed his hair and despite himself, he cried for the little boy who lost father and mother both in a single blow. How much had 13 year old Mycroft been made to bear in the raising of his brother while their mother withdrew into her loss?

“Don’t John. Please. Don’t cry. It’s long over.”

It wasn’t, but perhaps now it could be. Perhaps now there was a context for Eloise Holmes’s emotional neglect, it could finally begin to be over.

“Sweetpea…”

“You take it all back, John. Every day I’m with you. We saved each other, remember?”

“Yes.”

Sherlock began to draw away and John clutched convulsively at him for a moment before Sherlock kissed his face, once, twice, four, seven, ten times.

“Ssh. Fluffbundle. Ssh. It’s all right. Make us some tea. Bring it to the bedroom. I want to wash my face.”

They helped each other up and John put the kettle on while Sherlock went to the bathroom. John listened to the water running in the bathroom down the hall, and splashed water on his own face and neck while the tea brewed. He took two cups into the bedroom where he found Sherlock sitting on the bed, holding an unframed picture John had never seen before.

“I kept it in the back of a bottom drawer,” confessed Sherlock, “Here.” He offered it to John. “That is the four of us, the year before he died.”

It was a grainy picture, a snapshot. Eloise, young and happy, stood beside her husband, his left hand firmly in her right. She was gazing adoringly at him, while he seemed to be saying something to her. Beside her, 12 year old Mycroft leaned against her, a serious looking child, but he was smiling at his little brother, who clung to his father’s right hand and beamed at whoever was taking the picture. A too-large tricornered hat listed to starboard over Sherlock’s ear. An angelic little pirate indeed.

“You all look happy.”

“I think we were,” said Sherlock, “Though honestly, I don’t really remember. Is it all right if you sit up? I’d like to… I…” He was a little flustered for a moment, and then he smiled, a warm, unaffected smile. “I’d like a cuddle, John.”

John smiled back, as though he had a Pavlovian response of his own to any open expression of affection from his honeybee. Which he did. “Then a cuddle you shall have, freckle.”

“Freckle.”

“Lovebutton, snugglebum, my _habibi_.”

“Foreign language endearments. That’s new.”

“English can’t contain enough names for my honeybee. I’m researching options. That one’s Arabic.”

“I’m aware.”

John sat on the bed, against the headboard, and held out his hand. Sherlock crawled between his legs and curled against John’s chest. He took the photo and propped it against the light on the side table. He took up his tea and sipped it. John drank a little tea too, but mainly he wanted just to hold Sherlock, to win back some of the joy the day had held before they had come home to the Eloise Holmes time bomb.

Cups back on the side table, Sherlock sighed and snuggled close to John. “I wish I remembered him better. My father. Perhaps Mummy is right. I think you and he might be alike. I had never suspected I would have a classic Electra complex. Though it’s worked out rather well.”

That made John laugh. “It has, rather.”

“I remember…” said Sherlock slowly, as though recollection was only just returning, “He used to read to me. Pirate stories. _Treasure Island_ , Ballantyne’s _Coral Island_ , Defoe’s _Captain Singleton_. He had a first edition of Walter Scott’s _The Pirate_ , and he let me turn the pages. That book even _smelled_ exciting, when I was five.”

John kissed Sherlock’s hair, and listened to the wonder in his voice as he spoke of his father, as though the memories had only just now returned to be examined for the first time in thirty odd years.

“Daddy would take me to the park near our house, to explore. There was a pond, woods. They seemed huge to me, though clearly they can’t have been. He called me Captain FlintLock and he played at being First Mate Billy, and we had sword fights with sticks, which I always won. We buried treasure one day only to dig it up the next. Pennies, mainly. There are probably still some there that we forgot. Mycroft came with us sometimes, but he was too old really for pirate games by then. Daddy used to take him to galleries. Mycroft liked to draw. He was very good. I don’t remember him ever drawing again, after Daddy died.”

Then Sherlock was silent for a while, until he finally said: “Our father was very young when he died. Thirty five. Younger than I am now. Such a waste.”

John’s arms tightened around him. Sherlock closed his eyes and relished being held. “All those years of being insufficient,” he said quietly, “And I wasn’t. The lack wasn’t mine.”

“No, honeybumble. It wasn’t.”

They breathed soft and slow together for a little while.

“Sing to me, John.”

John kissed Sherlock’s hair, his brow, his nose, and he smiled.

_Close your eyes, give me your hand, darlin'_  
 _Do you feel my heart beating_  
 _Do you understand?_  
 _Do you feel the same?_  
 _Am I only dreaming?_  
 _Is this burning an eternal flame?_

“That’s a terrible song, John Watson.”

“You love it.”

“Yes I do. Please continue.”  
  
 _I believe it's meant to be, darlin'_  
 _I watch you when you are sleeping_  
 _You belong with me_  
 _Do you feel the same?_  
 _Am I only dreaming?_  
 _Or is this burning an eternal flame?_

“A ridiculous lyric,” Sherlock asserted in a voice of sleepy contentment, “Of course it is.”

John leaned close down to sing in a soft whisper against Sherlock’s skin.  
  
 _Say my name_  
 _Sun shines through the rain_  
 _A whole life so lonely_  
 _And then come and ease the pain_  
 _I don't want to lose this feeling, oh_

“John.”

“Yes, honeybee?”

“We’re going to get married tomorrow, in front of our friends.”

“Yes, we are.”

“And then we will solve puzzles and catch killers for many years, until that gets boring.”

“That’s right.”

“We’re going to grow old together. And retire to a cottage in Sussex where I will raise bees. And you will write terrible books and sing the most awful love songs.”

“Yes, snugglebear. That’s exactly what we’re going to do. Though I expect the awful songs will feature throughout.”

“Good. I love your awful love songs.”

“I know you do, button.”

Sherlock, drowsy now after the emotional turmoil, kissed John’s collarbone and neck and curled with boneless serenity in John’s arms.

“ _I can’t conceal it_ ,” Sherlock sang in a lazy mumble, “ _Don’t you see, can’t you feel it? Don’t you too?_ ”

John laughed and joined in.

_I do, I do, I do, I do, I do._

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Unhinged [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11547633) by [Lockedinjohnlock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lockedinjohnlock/pseuds/Lockedinjohnlock)




End file.
